Day 7: Dear Selfiers

I will admit, that yes, you all look decently cute and perky in your little digitalized frames; filtered to perfection and hashtagged appropriately before their publication. An occasional selfie or two seems fine and relatively normal when displayed via instagram, twitter, or facebook. And I am not here to judge anyone’s selfie-ing habits. I’m just here to make the observation that to witness a selfie occuring in the real, three-dimensional world is, well…awkward as HELL.

The thing is, a selfie is a very intentional thing. You do not take a candid selfie. Thus, selfies are incredibly unnatural, and well, awkward.

What I’m trying to say is, it makes me uncomfortable. It’s like public displays of affection: I understand a smooch here, a hug, or some holding of hands. I can even appreciate it. It’s cute.

A quick selfie snap is a-okay with me. But in the same way that a couple totally going at it in the produce section of the grocery store alarms the shit out of me, you posing with a broccoli head and continuously trying different overly enthusiastic expressions whilst selfie-ing makes me never want to buy broccoli again. It also makes me wonder if you’re running a weird vegetable fetish instagram account and I don’t want to stick around to see what you have in store for the zucchinis.

While it’s weird for me, in the long run, it’s you I worry for. There was a time when people did things just for the hell of it and then they were done, and the personal memory of the thing was sufficient. Recently I went to the beach and experienced some poor girl having an extended selfie photoshoot. Her face lit up with an artificial smile during each shot that disintegrated the moment she looked at the picture she had just taken. Selfie girl’s face and…THE OCEAN! Selfie girl’s face and…HER TOWEL! Selfie girl’s friends were laughing away and selfie girl was sitting in the sand capturing her face…again. And it made me a little bit sad.

So, selfiers, have fun with your occasional duck face. But do not be consumed by the artificiality of these moments you force yourself to create. Remember that there is a big, wide, unusual world that exists in the opposite direction you are pointing your camera, and the beauty it holds lies in it’s inability to be captured and contained.